CBS: U.S. Warns Iraq Of Harsh Measures

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/02/24/iraq/main541815.shtml

America's top general in the Middle East has warned community leaders that the U.S. military will use stern measures unless they curb attacks against coalition forces, an Iraqi who attended the weekend meeting said Monday.

Gen. John Abizaid, chief of the U.S. Central Command, delivered the warning Saturday to tribal sheiks and mayors in the "Sunni Triangle" city of Ramadi west of Baghdad, according to Fallujah Mayor Taha Bedawi.

"We have the capabilities and equipment," Bedawi quoted the general as saying.

The warning was another sign of a "get tough" campaign against insurgents, who have accelerated attacks against U.S. and coalition forces in recent weeks. U.S. forces had eased off on raids and other offensive measures during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which began Oct. 27, to avoid offending religious sensitivities.

<snip>

In Mosul, a senior oil official was injured and his son killed when assailants opened fire at their car in the northern city on Monday, his family said.

eom

When I read it I thought, hmmm...sounds like the Israelis talking to the Palestinians. They are way too ridiculous.

Jazzgirl

There are still many civilians that are friendly with American troops but the bush team, using the infamous "Israeli" solution is about to turn them all against us.

shooting, bombing, mayhem and invasion??

We were only playing house before! :mad:

Then beat the picture with a shoe in public…it’s very humiliating and harsh… :evilfrown:

They've got a Robertson, Coulter and Limbaugh mandatory tent-revival planned for anyone not caught throwing flowers. 'Course they'll need a C-5 for Rush's stash.

in fucking la-la land...

...if they really think that more threats are going to help, they are dangerously incompetent.

I think I just answered my own question.

Is anyone over there using the "L" word anymore? Or has it been supplanted by the "O" word?

... pissed-off and join up with the rebel forces to fight the Iraqi liberators. US Central Command is being run by idiots. We have become occupiers and interlopers in Iraq and it ain;t going to get better by 'getting tough'. The only real solution is timed and accelerated withdrawal.

if I have to shoot their feet off to make them.



this has been a message from "The beatings will continue until morale improves." school of public diplomacy.

LOL. Ain't that the exact truth

"...the more you tighten your grip, the more systems that will slip through your fingers."

these guys don't have a clue.

Why in the world would he warn community leaders unless he knows the violence is from normal, ordinary people who want their country left alone?

"Act nice, or we'll bomb you - oh, that didn't work either."

"If you don't behave, we'll start shooting people at traffic stops and leveling their date groves and houses - oh, that didn't work either."

Now what? "Harsh measures" - in light of the preceding eight months, what the hell does that mean?

Do you know what the School of the Americas was/is, good friend?

Good news for "Saddam loyalists" and "foreign fighters". Should boost inductions significantly.

where we get to watch these military geniuses do something brilliant like try to "Mow them all down"?

Shooting every 10th man as an example to the rest?

freedoms that you hate.....:eyes:

every last one of them."

if they thought they had trouble before, just wait.

solution, no ideas... when we are dropping bombs on nothing to frighten a country that has had more bombs/explosives dropped on it than Vietnam. And why would they get scared now?

When is someone going to say Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Wolfowitz, Junior, Blair... have no idea what to do and this was entirely an evil mistake? Nobody will so let's drop more of our tax dollars for media presentation.

-----
A kit for a 500 pound bomb will be released later this year. The kit has four fins -- one is fixed and the other can be moved to position the bomb. There is also a small structure that wraps around the mid section of the bomb to provide stability. The kit itself costs about $20,000 plus the cost of the bomb.

http://www.larrysworld.com/articles/jdam.htm

Esp. the part about if more force is applied:

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2003/09/02/facing_the_truth_about_iraq/

Facing the truth about Iraq
By James Carroll, 9/2/2003

THE WAR IS LOST. By most measures of what the Bush administration forecast for its adventure in Iraq, it is already a failure. The war was going to make the Middle East a more peaceful place. It was going to undercut terrorism. It was going to show the evil dictators of the world that American power is not to be resisted. It was going to improve the lives of ordinary Iraqis. It was going to stabilize oil markets. The American army was going to be greeted with flowers. None of that happened. The most radical elements of various fascist movements in the Arab world have been energized by the invasion of Iraq. The American occupation is a rallying point for terrorists. Instead of undermining extremism, Washington has sponsored its next phase, and now moderates in every Arab society are more on the defensive than ever.

snip

hen brutal force generates resistance, the first impulse is to increase force levels. But, as the history of conflicts like this shows, that will result only in increased resistance. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has rejected the option of more troops for now, but, in the name of force-protection, the pressures for escalation will build as US casualties mount. The present heartbreak of one or two GI deaths a day will seem benign when suicide bombers, mortar shells, or even heavier missile fire find their ways into barracks and mess halls.

Either reinforcements will be sent to the occupation, or present forces will loosen the restraints with which they reply to provocation. Both responses will generate more bloodshed and only postpone the day when the United States must face the truth of its situation.

snip

Sooner or later, the United States must admit that it has made a terrible mistake in Iraq, and it must move quickly to undo it. That means the United States must yield not only command of the occupation force, but participation in it. The United States must renounce any claim to power or even influence over Iraq, including Iraqi oil. The United States must accept the humiliation that would surely accompany its being replaced in Iraq by the very nations it denigrated in the build-up to the war.

--more --

Eloriel

we line 'em up, then randomly make every 5th person lie face down, then walk down the line and shoot them in the back of the head!!

worked like a charm for those nazi war criminals!!!

those words are etched in my mind.

they were said by a viet nam era admiral years afterward in an interview in the late 1970's about occupation forces.